


It Happens In A Shopping List Sort Of Way

by GalaxyAqua



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Distant/Detached Narration, F/F, Lists, in which everything is the same except the ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:54:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22015234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalaxyAqua/pseuds/GalaxyAqua
Summary: Princess Sonia Nevermind, the nice girl, and her story in points.
Relationships: Sonia Nevermind/Owari Akane
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	It Happens In A Shopping List Sort Of Way

**Author's Note:**

> a slighter colder take on Sonia, just because I never got around to writing her 'into despair' fic after dr3 kind of put a wrench in my inspiration and I never got it back, anyway this kind of pulls from there

1.

When one first looks at Akane Owari, they see a girl with a big mouth, big brown eyes, various other large assets – for example, her bottomless stomach and her ludicrously messy hair – and Sonia Nevermind, princess since birth, taught that things are always best in _small_ proportions, swallows her disapproval and smiles.

2.

Day one, six hours in, the tropical island already feels nauseating and Princess Sonia Nevermind attempts to get along with everyone. She’s never been able to connect with her peers, at least not those her own age, and she’s exhausted trying to keep up. Novoselic nobles are at least polite, and they conform to a certain standard to which Sonia has grown accustomed to.

Akane Owari is the opposite of this standard. She not only eats a lot, but she’s rude and blunt and lazy and a downright disaster on the emotional spectrum. She’s gullible and naïve, can do oddly flexible things with her body, and seems to believe a punch out can solve everything. Akane is shouting. Sonia bites her tongue and tries to remain ladylike. Akane is challenging other people to a fight. Sonia walks away.

3.

It’s morning and Akane Owari has forgotten her name. She’s filthy from her jog, scarfing down breakfast with such a frantic hunger it’s like she thinks it’s the last meal she’ll ever eat. It gets everywhere, explosions of crumbs and condiments and it’s hard to watch. Sonia sighs quietly, takes a glass of water, and puts the gymnast onto her growing list of people to avoid. Sonia wonders why everyone still thinks she’s _the nice girl._

4.

Sonia just wants to try cleaning for once. Nagito Komaeda draws the lucky stick. She wonders, not for the first time, about what nonsense a talent based on luck really is. Akane offers to hang out with her, seeing as they’re both exempt from cleaning duty. Sonia rejects the offer. Akane shrugs, and trails after Nekomaru Nidai, fists raised.

She’s so reckless. Sonia almost worries. 

5.

Byakuya Togami gets murdered at his own party. Mikan Tsumiki is the clumsiest person Sonia has ever met. Akane Owari calls the late Byakuya a ‘jokester’ at his own murder trial. Sonia is not impressed. Nagito Komaeda shows his true colours. Sonia adds him to the people to avoid list, subconsciously stepping closer to Hajime Hinata – one of the only tolerable islanders left. She discovers she can cross Teruteru off her list, too. He’s dead. Sonia wants to go home.

6.

The second motive is a game machine, for which Sonia cares very little about. She pretends, and internally wrinkles her nose in disgust as Akane Owari inhales Monokuma’s putrid looking curry, and thinks of a way to make herself feel better. She calls for a second party, with two conditions.

One, it’s all for the girls, and two, it’s to be held at the beach. Sonia expects full attendance. She does not get it. Mahiru Koizumi doesn’t go. Mahiru Koizumi dies. Sonia contemplates ninjas, swords, a serial killer with a mask, and Akane Owari’s muscular figure dripping with blood.

“Fought Nidai,” the brunette explains carelessly, skin slick with sand and sweat and blood and the man in question confirms it.

“Of course.” Sonia replies, and her tummy twists in knots. “Of course.”

7.

Sonia never trusted Peko Pekoyama or Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu. She knows now why her instincts were correct. 

She cries for Peko, tragic sobs, she plays the role of innocent and sweet, a darling friend wanting nothing more than the utmost peace and happiness for all of them. Fuyuhiko cries for Peko too, but his tears are genuine through and through. Sonia watches them distantly, a dance of execution and death before their very eyes, and wonders why she couldn’t have grown up knowing a friend like that. Selfishly, she wonders why she spent 15 years lonely.

Quietly, for once, when the sounds of slaughter are deafening in the air, Akane says, “It’s just the saddest thing to watch strong people die.”

“Isn’t it the saddest to watch anybody die?” Sonia whispers, fingers tracing the tear tracks down her cheeks, hoping she sounds heartbroken enough to make Akane feel guilty.

“Weak people die all the time.” The brunette shoots back. “There’s this thing, y’know, that ya learn when you’re livin’ in an unfair world. Where the strong survive, and the weak don’t. Y’all can try all you want, but there ain’t no use trying to save the weak when they’re gone. Protect them, cherish them, whatever. You can’t save them from dyin’. Better ya don’t try at all.”

“My goodness! What a terrible thing to say!”

“I’m right, though.”

They watch as Peko slices down, a split-second of terror flashing across her pale features as her sword makes contact with Fuyuhiko’s right eye.

“I’m right,” Akane repeats. “It’s worse when the strong people fall.”

Sonia doesn’t want to tell her she agrees.

8.

Akane Owari challenges Monokuma. It’s the stupidest thing Sonia could think of for anyone to do, but the words _strong people_ echo in her mind, and she wonders if, maybe, Akane had been more affected by the past four deaths than she let on. Akane almost dies, too, and Sonia feels her heart stop. Nekomaru Nidai takes the blow. Akane breaks.

Sonia worries. 

9.

There’s a little something called Despair Disease. 

When she sees Akane cry, Sonia wonders if it would be unladylike to hold her, and tell her she needs to be strong, or she’d die like the weak, like she’d said. Sonia contemplates, and does no such thing. She lets the big girl, the fierce girl, sob it out, and she leaves with a heavy conscience. She doesn’t know when she started caring. She doesn’t know whether she likes it or not.

10.

Mikan Tsumiki pours her heart out until she runs dry. For love, she says. 

For love she murdered Ibuki Mioda and Hiyoko Saionji, and for this twisted love she’d die for it. She’s lost her mind. 

Sonia clutches at the ribbon on her chest, and decides that hope needs to triumph over despair. That what Monokuma wants, that what Mikan Tsumiki wants – is wrong, wrong, wrong.

Akane argues about the wrong thing. Says the nurse didn’t treat her, said she’d never take help from someone like her. 

Cowardly Akane couldn’t have had a choice. 

(But she did. Sonia was there. Sonia just walked away. Sonia is so tired of being the pretty princess above it all that just keeps walking away.)

11.

Nekomaru Nidai is granted a new body. 

Sonia bites her lip, reminds herself that she’s a princess and princesses should never feel any intense emotion whatsoever – god forbid show it visibly, she’s ashamed of every tear she’s shed – and sidles a little closer to Gundam Tanaka. Akane could have Nekomaru, that’s fine. She’d just stick to Gundam. Sonia hates that she’s being petty. 

It’s a life for a life, and she’s _jealous_ that Akane prefers Nekomaru coming back from the dead to bothering Sonia about whatever thought came to mind. That’s so unbelievably petty. She’s ashamed of herself.

Still, it doesn’t stop her from chasing Gundam around. Rather cheerfully, considering they would soon come to starve here, right in the disgustingly bright colours of the funhouse. She’s already accepted it, even though she won’t say it. Gundam’s heart is much softer than hers though, and in his deep rumbling tone he confesses that he knows this is not where the road ends. 

He’s not bad company, and his occult stories are always wondrous and grand and Sonia finds comfort in him. Sonia wonders if they had been given more time, could they have become greater friends – best friends? Closer? His emotions are as guarded as her own; spiraling into loneliness behind a shield of bravado. She knows that look. But still, the difference between Sonia Nevermind and Gundam Tanaka is _feeling_.

Sonia lets him go one night, expecting him to be back in the morning.

He fights for honor. He wins. That victory – one cruel, unfortunate victory against Nekomaru Nidai in the cold hours of the funhouse – costs him his life. 

12.

Sonia is left with six. Akane, a given, but also Kazuichi Souda, Fuyuhiko Kuzuryuu, Hajime Hinata, Chiaki Nanami, and the thorn in all their sides; Nagito Komaeda. Sonia goes back to her list, crosses off all the names on it except his, and grabs a red pen to circle that single name over and over again.

13.

There’s bomb threats. Traitors. A plan so insane that there is no possibility it could have worked, but did. Because of sheer luck. Because of that bullshit Nagito Komaeda pulled out of his ass and killed himself with. Jesus, fuck, son of a bitch. Sonia wants to hold Chiaki’s hand. She wants to dive into Akane’s arms and scream that goddamn fucking _Nagito Komaeda_ ruined all the hope he stood for, and for what? Distrust? Despair?

She fucking hates Nagito Komaeda.

14.

Chiaki Nanami dies.

Not a traitor but a friend.

Sonia hates everything, but never anything more than she hates Nagito Komaeda.

15.

Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. Hajime is Izuru Kamukura. 

Izuru Kamukura did this. Izuru Kamukura made them go through this. It was Izuru Kamukura. It was Izuru Kamukura. It was Hajime. It was Hajime. Of course it was Hajime. 

16.

Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. Sonia Nevermind is a Remnant of Despair. 

The worst part is that it makes sense. She’s not just _the nice girl._ She wishes she was, but she’s not. 

Darkness swirls within her. Within them all. It’s the scariest truth, knowing that she’s just one step away from tipping over the ledge and all her classmates are, too. 

She’s heard their stories. Heard about Hajime’s worthless _no talent_ miserable life, heard about Akane’s poor and starvation-stricken upbringing, about Fuyuhiko’s clan and all that murder, about Kazuichi’s father — terrible man, terrible son. 

Sonia hates that she thinks nothing of these stories, even as she gasps and recoils and reacts the way nice girls do.

Sonia Nevermind is not a nice girl. 

They are all Remnants of Despair. 

17.

She needs to stay alive. She will not give up on life. She refuses to stay here as a pawn to this sadistic game, refuses to let Junko Enoshima fuck with them anymore. Shut it down. Shut everything down. 

18.

If she forgets, so be it. So be it. But she refuses to forget.

Sonia _is_ a nice girl. She’s a good princess. She’s someone that isn’t going to fall victim to despair. Not anymore. 

She’ll remedy her mistakes. 

She’ll believe in the future for the sake of hope. 

If she forgets, so be it. 

She smiles at her friends as they shut it all down. 

1\.   
  
When one first looks at Akane Owari, they see a girl with a big mouth, big brown eyes, deep scars and strong hands.

“Good morning, princess,” she says, pulling Sonia Nevermind out of her virtual reality pod. Sonia cannot feel her legs, but she can feel the warmth of Akane’s fingers around her wrists, can feel the ache in her chest when she looks at her. 

“Good morning,” Sonia croaks out, feeling utterly terrible. 

Akane smiles wearily and Sonia does not miraculously remember everything. There are pieces she can’t identify yet, floating in the abyss of her heavy head, but she remembers the way Akane’s arms feel when they wrap around her delicate frame, holding her close.

“Long road ahead,” Akane says. “Don’t know where we’ll end up, but we got here somehow and we’ll get out somehow as well.”

“How did you know that I’m a princess? Have you been to Novoselic before?”

“Never been to Novawhatsit, but you just look like one, princess,” Akane grins, a little brighter, arms coming up behind her head. “Just a nickname, you know?”

“I’ve never had a nickname before.” She says, cupping a hand over her mouth and finds that she is slightly alarmed by the presence of scars there that she doesn’t remember ever obtaining. It's alright. The truth will reveal itself eventually. It always does. “My name is Sonia Nevermind, I am the princess of Novoselic. And you are?”

“Akane Owari, no title found,” Akane reaches out and ruffles her hair. She doesn't hate it. “But I’m pretty sure we’ve met before. Wanna start that trip on the long road and figure it out? There’s a beach outside that could do great things to your skin. You’re paper white, Sonia, you need some Vitamin D.”

“Perhaps I had succumbed to an illness. I certainly feel that way. Still, I would love to go to the beach, if you’ll take me?”

Sonia smiles, leans into her hand, and Akane nods, helps her walk, short stumbles across the metal floor as they make their way towards the exit. She’s warm, so full of sunlight and Sonia loves everything about her. Her big brown eyes, her long brown hair. She doesn't feel like Sonia Nevermind, but she doesn't know who else to feel like, so she thinks it might be close enough. She doesn't know anything, really, seems like her head has been wiped clean. Somehow, she isn't afraid. 

“Here,” Akane sweeps her up and starts running, and she doesn’t seem like the kind of girl that can but she also doesn’t seem like the kind of girl that can be stopped. “Let’s go. To the future!”

“The future is bright,” Sonia laughs, shielding her eyes from the sun outside, a stark contrast to the world they had woken up in. “I almost fear that is too much Vitamin D. Will I be alright?”

“Everythin’ will be fine, Vitamin D and all,” Akane tells her, and for some reason, even though nothing currently fits together coherently and she feels so sad when she had looked at the closed pods, it sounds like the truth. 

Maybe that’s enough.


End file.
